Ascot United Supervets v Jamrock Supervets

Report

Ascot United Supervets breezed serenely past JamrockWindrush on a perfect night for football at the Racecourse Ground. Chris Ferdinand and Chris Purdue were on target in the first half, Mike Tomlinson bagged a second half brace to complete the scoring. Ascot were never quite at their best, but they still did more than enough to secure the three points. Good stuff all round.

“We played some great stuff, some good stuff and some downright stupid stuff” mused injured co-gaffer Stu Flurry to Gaby Yorath in the post-game de-brief. “But, even then, we scored four, could have had a shed load more and in truth ‘keeper Rob Stockford spent most of the time prowling the edge of his 18 yard box waiting for the odd overhit long ball to come through. It wasn’t one of his busier nights”. Fair comments, one and all.

Ascot certainly started well. Mike Tomlinson and Chris Purdue pinged the ball around impressively, as Phil White and Martin Kay marauded like newly unleased (middle-aged) gazelles down the flanks. Ascot were on the front foot.

And, sure enough, it didn’t take all too long for the first goal to come. Incisive passing led Chris Ferdinand to be presented with a chance eight yards out. He made no mistake. Chris Purdue, playing his first game for getting on for six weeks, did all the box-to-box running that was needed, and was rewarded with goal number two of the evening.

Jamrock’s cause was then made all the more difficult when their centre half was shown a red card for bringing down Dave Thompson when he was clean though. It wasn’t a tackle that endangered life or limb, but Thompson was indeed the last man. An early shower beckoned for the Jamrockdefender.

Messrs Porter and Flurry shuffled the pack in the second half. That perhaps led to Jamrock having their best period of the game. For the first 15 minutes of the second half they pushed Ascot back and looked dangerous on the break. The next goal was looking like it’d be ever more significant.

Thankfully for the home side, that goal came Ascot’s way. A scintillating move from back to front saw Mike Tomlinson loom large on the edge of the six yard box to fire home. Simple football had done the job.

Tomlinson then doubled his tally with a nice chip from the edge of the box and indeed then went on the search for what was to prove an elusive third, hat-trick goal. Co-gaffer Flurry passed up and down the touchline and gave him ten minutes to grab the match ball. With Tomlinson firing one into the wood Flurry decided he’d seen enough. Tomlinson was ruthlessly hooked and left to watch the last 15 from the Judy Dench.

However, that did mean that Jon Norris could step into the centre of the park. And, that worked well; a slightly aging Roy Keane style performance brought decent dynamism to the party, although that still didn’t translate into any more goals. Mike Hynes fired balls in aplenty, Zak Dimitrovski kept bashing the ball against the woodwork, Chris Ferdinand fired one over the bar from 12 yards and Ascot found what seemed any number of ways of somehow not converting decent chances.

No matter. 4-0 it ended and no one in the history of football ever said that winning 4-0 was a bad thing. Three points and the Yellas are now eyeing up one of the two play off slots.

Next up for the Supervets is Claygate on 22 November.

Squad. Rob Stockford, Dan Hough, John Gregory, Mike Tomlinson, Ed Dubois, Paul Hamblin, Chris Purdue, Martin Kay, Dave Thompson, Chris Ferdinand, Phil White, Mike Hynes, Zak Dimitrovski, Jon Norris, Dave Porter.

Goals. Mike Tomlinson (2), Chris Ferdinand, Chris Purdue